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1. 1 The Concept of Organizational
Culture
Organizational culture is one of the major issues in academic
research and
education, in organization theory as well as in management
practice. There are good
reasons for this: the cultural dimension is central in all aspects
of organizational
life. Even in those organizations where cultural issues receive
little explicit atten-
tion, how people in a company think, feel, value and act are
guided by ideas,
meanings and beliefs of a cultural (socially shared) nature.
Whether managers
think that culture is too soft or too complicated to bother about
or whether there
is no unique corporate culture does not reduce the significance
of culture. Senior
organizational members are always, in one way or another,
‘managing culture’ –
underscoring what is important and what is less so and framing
how the corpo-
rate world should be understood. Organizations practising
intensive ‘numbers
management’ may develop and reproduce a culture celebrating
performance indi-
cators and rituals around the handling of these. In most
contemporary organiza-
tions, corporate culture receives a lot of attention and is seen as
crucial. However,
even in those cases where top managers have a strong awareness
2. of the signifi-
cance of culture, there is often a lack of a deeper understanding
of how people
and organizations function in terms of culture. Culture is as
significant and com-
plex as it is difficult to understand and ‘use’ in a thoughtful
way. Awareness of
and interest in culture vary between managers and companies. It
is often difficult
to attain a high level of cultural awareness to guide actions. The
interest in quick
fixes in much management writings and thinking is unhelpful.
Instead a well
elaborated framework and a vocabulary in which core concepts
– culture, mean-
ing, symbolism – are sorted out is necessary for understanding
and for qualified
organizational practice by consultants, managers and others.
It is tempting to emphasize the significance of corporate
cultures for perfor-
mance, growth and success. In the beginning of the 1980s books
identifying char-
acteristics of excellent companies in the USA (Peters and
Waterman, 1982) and
the secrets behind the at the time highly successful Japanese
companies (e.g.
Ouchi, 1981) highlighted corporate culture. These books, in
combination with
journalistic writings, created a widely spread belief of corporate
cultures being
perhaps the significant factor behind the performance of
companies. This belief
has been shaken by problems of many of the companies
portrayed by Peters and
Waterman as ‘excellent’ some years after the publication of the
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first half of the 1990s. Still, a strong case can be made for
taking an interest in
corporate culture in relationship to performance. Managers
frequently ascribe
successes such as rapid growth to their culture. ‘Companies win
or lose based on
the cultures they create’, the CEO of CompUSA, the largest
retailer of personal
computers, says (Academy of Management Executive, 1999:
34). Also many of
the most influential academics agree. Pfeffer (1994: 6), for
example, argues that
the traditional sources of success – product and process
technology, access to regu-
lated markets, economies of scale, etc. – matter less today than
in the past, ‘leaving
organizational culture and capabilities, derived from how
people are managed,
as comparatively more vital’. Knowledge is said to be the
crucial factor behind
sustainable advantage and success for companies and knowledge
issues are closely
interlinked with organizational culture (Davenport and Prusak,
1998). Knowledge
7. management then partly becomes a matter of cultural
management (Alvesson and
Kärreman, 2001; McDermott, 1999). Culture is thus highly
significant for how
companies and other organizations function: from strategic
change, to everyday
leadership and how managers and employees relate to and
interact with customers
as well as to how knowledge is created, shared, maintained and
utilized.
My major point is not, however, to preach culture as the
principle means to cor-
porate effectiveness, growth and success. It is, as will be
elaborated in Chapter 3,
difficult to establish clear and causal links between culture and
something else.
Trying to do so easily implicates a rather simplistic view on
culture that seriously
underestimates its theoretical potential and value. Nor is my
interest to offer
new recipes for effective management of culture. For me,
organizational culture
is significant as a way of understanding organizational life in
all its richness and
variations. The centrality of the culture concept follows from
the profound impor-
tance of shared meanings for any coordinated action. As
Smircich (1985) says,
organizations exist as systems of meanings that are shared to
various degrees.
A sense of common, taken for granted ideas, beliefs and
meanings are necessary
for continuing organized activity. This makes interaction
possible without con-
stant confusion or intense interpretation and re-interpretation of
8. meanings. For
organizational practitioners – managers and others shaping
organizational life –
a developed capacity to think in terms of organizational culture
facilitates acting
wisely. Insights and reflections may be useful in relationship to
getting people to
do the ‘right’ things in terms of effectiveness, but also for
promoting more
autonomous standpoints in relationship to dominant ideologies,
myths, fashions,
etc. To encourage and facilitate the thinking through of various
aspects of values,
beliefs and assumptions in industry, occupations and
organizations seem to me to
be a worthwhile task. This book tries to make a contribution in
this direction.
The book deals with the why and how of cultural understandings
of organiza-
tions. I try to suggest novel ways of making us more alert to the
possibilities of
cultural analysis, showing how it can lead to insightful
interpretations of organi-
zations, management and working life. The general aims are
thus to contribute to
a more reflective mode of research and to more reflective
corporate practitioners.
Reflective then refers not only to how we relate to instrumental
concerns in a
more varied, thoughtful and learning-oriented way. It also
includes the critical
thinking through of objectives, arrangements and acts in terms
of how they
Understanding Organizational Culture2
12. Culture
Account: s3642728
contribute to, or work against, the common good. It draws
attention to hidden
ethical and political dimensions of organizational life.
The meaning(s) of culture
A glance at just a few works that use the term ‘organizational
culture’ will reveal
enormous variation in the definitions of this term and even more
in the use of the
term ‘culture’. ‘Culture’ has no fixed or broadly agreed
meaning even in anthro-
pology (Borowsky, 1994; Ortner, 1984), but variation in its use
is especially notice-
able in the literature on organizational culture. This is partly
related to strong
differences in the purpose and depth of books and articles. But
also the broad vari-
ation of scientific disciplines and research orientations involved
in organizational
culture studies makes the field very heterogeneous.1 The
concept of culture seems to
lend itself to very different uses as collectively shared forms of
for example, ideas
and cognition, as symbols and meanings, as values and
ideologies, as rules and
norms, as emotions and expressiveness, as the collective
unconscious, as behaviour
patterns, structures and practices, etc. all of which may be made
targets to study. Of
course, culture is not unique in this way. Actually, most if not
13. all significant
concepts in organization studies and social science tend to be
accompanied with a
variety of different meanings and definitions (Palmer and
Hardy, 2000).
Culture is, however, a tricky concept as it is easily used to
cover everything
and consequently nothing. That certain researchers are
interested in ‘culture’ – or
at least use the term – does not mean that they have very much
in common.
Frequently ‘culture’ seems to refer to little more than a social
pattern, e.g. it refers
to surface phenomena rather than explores the meanings and
ideas behind them.
It could therefore be advocated that in many cases the term
should be abandoned
in favour of something like ‘informal behaviour patterns’,
‘norm system’, or sim-
ply ‘social pattern’. Many people referring to culture seem to do
so in a very
vague way and it is important to use the concept without losing
focus, direction
and interpretive depth.
I use the term ‘organizational culture’ as an umbrella concept
for a way of
thinking which takes a serious interest in cultural and symbolic
phenomena. This
term directs the spotlight in a particular direction rather than
mirroring a concrete
reality for possible study. I agree with Frost et al.’s (1985: 17)
‘definition’ of
organizational culture: ‘Talking about organizational culture
seems to mean talk-
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Culture is not primarily ‘inside’ people’s heads, but somewhere
‘between’ the
heads of a group of people where symbols and meanings are
publicly expressed,
e.g. in work group interactions, in board meetings but also in
material objects.
Culture then is central in governing the understanding of
behaviour, social
18. events, institutions and processes. Culture is the setting in
which these pheno-
mena become comprehensible and meaningful.
Meaning refers to how an object or an utterance is interpreted.
Meaning has a
subjective referent in the sense that it appeals to an expectation,
a way of relating
to things. Meaning makes an object relevant and meaningful. In
a cultural con-
text, it is socially shared and not personally idiosyncratic
meanings, that are of
interest. I will give an example: a formal rule in a company says
that factory man-
agement can only decide on investments up to £25,000, larger
investments must
be sanctioned by a higher authority. This can be seen as a
simple, objective struc-
tural arrangement. The exact meaning of the rule, however,
calls for interpreta-
tion – and here culture enters. Various meanings are possible:
(a) it is under all
circumstances intolerable and leads to automatic dismissal that
a factory manager
makes larger purchases or investments; (b) ‘investment’ can be
interpreted or
divided up in different ways and £25,000 is a rough guideline
rather than a pre-
cise figure; (c) as a general principle one should consult top
management before
significantly or without strong reasons exceeding this level, etc.
Another option
is that this rule is read and applied/responded to with much
variation, it may be
seen as a strict guideline for younger factory managers and for
managers of units
19. seen as performing below or around average, while experienced
managers head-
ing high-performing units are not expected to obey the rule at
all. A rule differs
in how strictly and uniformly it is interpreted and taken
seriously due to the cul-
tural context given the rule its exact meaning. We can imagine
different organi-
zational cultures in which the same rule is given very different
meanings and thus
leads to different behaviours and consequences of the rule.
In a cultural context it is always socially shared meanings that
are of interest, not
so much highly personal meanings. Individuals may be more or
less authoritarian-
bound and obey with rules or they may dislike and rebel against
bureaucracy – they
may as individuals see rules as indicators of order and
rationality or as a straitjacket
and an obstacle to the exercise of judgement and responsibility.
Individual mean-
ings are certainly important and they may vary considerably
within a group. But a
cultural understanding concentrates not on individual
idiosyncracies: it is the shared
orientations within an organization or another group that is of
interest.
A symbol can be defined as an object – a word or statement, a
kind of action
or a material phenomenon – that stands ambiguously for
something else and/or
something more than the object itself (Cohen, 1974). A symbol
is rich in mean-
ing – it condensates a more complex set of meanings in a
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culture and social structure is helpful here. Culture is regarded
as a more or less
cohesive system of meanings and symbols, in terms of which
social interaction
takes place. Social structure is regarded as the behavioural
patterns which the
social interaction itself gives rise to. In the case of culture,
then, we have a frame
of reference of beliefs, expressive symbols and values, by
means of which indi-
viduals define their environment, express their feelings and
make judgements. At
the social structural level, we have a continuous process of
interaction. As Geertz
(1973: 145) states, culture is the creation of meaning through
which human
24. beings interpret their experiences and guide their actions, while
social structure is
the form which action takes or the network of social
relationships which actually
exists.
This means that culture and social structure represent different
abstractions of
the same phenomenon. Culture describes social action as
depending on the mean-
ing it has for those involved, while social structure describes
social action from
the point of view of its consequences on the functioning of the
social system. This
understanding permits treatment of the tension arising between
culture and social
structure. A reasonable assumption is that culture and social
structure are not nec-
essarily in a well-integrated and harmonic relationship with
each other, i.e. not
best defined or analysed in terms of integration and coherence.
Discontinuity
between social and cultural structures can occur, for example,
when there is a
change in formal rules or routines which is not matched by a
change in cultural
patterns (Fombrun, 1986). Studying the cultural therefore is not
the same as
studying social structure. A significant problem in much writing
under the rubric
of culture is that it lacks sufficient focus and depth in the
exploration of meaning
and symbolism; instead it drifts to a more ‘superficial’ study of
social patterns:
structures, behaviours and relations.
25. Despite the emphasis on culture set forth by Geertz and others
as an ideational
phenomenon, cultural analysis is, of course, not limited to
studying the shared
meanings and ideas of people or forms of communication with a
strong symbolic
element, such as ‘exotic’ rituals. Cultural analysis may be
applied to all kinds of
social phenomena. The point is that culture research
concentrates on meanings
anchored and transmitted in a symbolic form. Cultural meanings
guide thinking,
feeling and acting. It is thus difficult to argue that culture is not
important. It may
be argued that culture denotes something too vague and broad to
be very useful,
but cultural analysis is more delimited and precise as it is
directed at specific
phenomena: how people think strategically, how they interpret
and respond to
the acts of a superior, how they understand the customer and
give meaning to a
label such as ‘market orientation’.
An illustrative example on the significance of cultural meaning
is provided by
Olie (1994) who studied mergers between Dutch and German
companies.
Different orientations and understandings of the decision
process were profound.
The German managers saw meetings as instruments for
decision-making, while
the Dutch managers tended to perceive them as platforms for
exchanging ideas
and information as a preparation for further action. In the eyes
of the German
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reached, the Dutch tended to treat it in their own way and
behave accordingly if
they felt that flexibility was called for. For the German
managers, a decision was
seen as something one should strictly stick to. All this
overlapped with an authori-
tarian leadership style in the German company and a preference
for participative
management in the Dutch camp. Here we can see how the entire
decision-making
process from preparation to implementation to a large extent
reflects cultural
beliefs and meanings about what is rational, natural and
effective. This example
contrasts two different sets of meanings around decision-
making, but also in a
‘one-culture-company’ decision-making never takes place in a
purely rational
manner. The example thus illustrates not only problems with
mergers and cross-
national interaction, but also the cultural nature of decision-
making.
This book treats a variety of ways of using ideas on culture in
research and
30. organizational practice. This calls for balancing between
freezing a definite view
on culture and letting the concept stand for anything and
nothing. Most of the
diverse perspectives surveyed here share the following
assumptions about cul-
tural phenomena (cf. Hofstede et al., 1990; Trice and Beyer,
1993):
• they are related to history and tradition;
• have some depth, are difficult to grasp and account for, and
must be interpreted;
• they are collective and shared by members of groups;
• they are primarily ideational in character, having to do with
meanings, under-
standings, beliefs, knowledge, and other intangibles;
• they are holistic, intersubjective and emotional rather than
strictly rational and
analytical.
Viewing culture broadly as a shared and learned world of
experiences, mean-
ings, values, and understandings which inform people and which
are expressed,
reproduced, and communicated partly in symbolic form is
consistent with a vari-
ety of approaches to the conduct of concrete studies. More
precise ways of view-
ing culture and what they can reveal will be explored,
compared, assessed and
developed in this book.
Some comments on the contemporary interest
in organizational culture
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including in merger and acquisition situations, culture receives
considerable
attention also in companies where management of culture is not
normally seen as
a top priority.
It seems reasonable to point at a set of factors or lines of
development to make
35. sense of the increased interest in particular in the 1980s. The
exaggerated view of
corporate culture as a universal tool for competitiveness and
‘excellence’ was
partly due to the fertile ground created by the boom of the
Japanese companies
and the corresponding difficulties for US and other Western
economies at that
time, and the skilful exploitation of pop-management authors
and consultants.
There are, however, a mix of more substantive and lasting
reasons for the ongo-
ing interest in organizational culture. For many academic
writers it arises from
theoretical concerns (see, e.g. Frost et al., 1985). Traditional
organization research,
often objectivist and abstract, has proved incapable of providing
deep, rich, and
realistic understandings. Organizational culture differs as it
addresses the lived
experiences of people. The culture concept also has the
advantage that it seems
to provide a conceptual bridge between micro- and macro-levels
of analysis
and between organizational behaviour and strategic management
(Smircich,
1983a: 346). It connects the organization as a whole with
everyday experiences
and individual action.
Changes in production technology and/or work organization
during the recent
decades may also have been important in bringing the cultural
dimension into
sharper focus. Brulin (1989) suggests that efforts to reduce
storage costs by
36. increasing the throughput speed of products in manufacturing
processes call for
greater flexibility and a higher degree of commitment from the
workforce than in
traditional forms of work organization. This sometimes leads to
a reduction of the
significance of distinct occupational identities and provides
more space for, as
well as managerial interest in, reinforcing organization-based
identifications and
orientations (Casey, 1996). Culture then becomes significant as
a glue holding the
organization together. In addition, changes in values and life-
styles among
employees and in society tend to make corporate control more
complicated and
it becomes more important to involve workers in the companies.
People don’t
expect to be bossed, which calls for less authoritarian styles of
management.
These developments create a background for the interest in
organizational
cultures.
The expansion of high-tech and other knowledge-intensive
companies employ-
ing a large number of professionals whose loyalty is crucial,
also contributes to
the recognition of the significance of culture in management
(Alvesson, 1995;
Kunda and Barley, 1988; Robertson, 1999). Weick (1987: 118)
speaks of a reduc-
tion in the number of mechanistic organizations and a
corresponding increase in
the proportion of organic organizations ‘held together by
culture’. ‘This is why
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control of employees’ attitudes and commitment, the latter
being crucial for the
employee service-mindedness which in turn has an impact on
the level of cus-
tomer satisfaction.
It is also possible that organizations these days do not
automatically produce
‘enough’ local culture – naturally emerging, distinct
organization-wide cultural
patterns – and it is this which accounts for the current interest
in it. Van Maanen
and Barley (1985: 40) remark that it is because modern
management methods
are antithetical to ‘cultural authority’ that ‘the notion of
“organizational culture”
has attained a faddish appeal in business literature’. Cultural
41. patterns become
more diverse and less stable. As Giddens (1991: 3) writes:
‘Doubt, a pervasive
feature of modern critical reason, permeates into everyday life
as well as philo-
sophical consciousness, and forms a general existential
dimension of the con-
temporary social world’. The traditional obedience to
authorities has faded
away. Business leaders, like other conventional authorities, are
increasingly
faced with an unwillingness of subordinates to be pushed
around or to accept
their messages at face value. Instead managers need to convince
subordinates –
and perhaps even themselves and their customers and partners –
about the
beliefs, values and ideals to strive for and accept as guidelines.
A perceived need
to develop or repair a cultural framework supporting authority
and the orienta-
tions deemed to be appropriate may thus be a broad trend, but
perhaps most
salient in organic organizations, where change and instability
plus frequently a
rather qualified workforce make traditional sources of authority
and community
most vulnerable.
Cognitive interests
Any social science project should carefully reflect upon and
position itself to the
issue of the basic purpose or rationale. Highly valuable here is
Habermas’ (1972)
idea of cognitive or knowledge-constitutive interests. He
42. identifies three basic
motives or interests in which any knowledge-seeking project is
grounded.
The technical interest aims at developing knowledge of causal
relationships in
order to manipulate and control variables for the sake of
accomplishing certain
wanted outcomes. The practical-hermeneutic interest aims at
achieving under-
standing about human existence – the creation of meaning and
communication in
order to produce knowledge about wo/man as a cultural being,
without any par-
ticular concern for the utility of that knowledge. The
emancipatory interest aims
at liberating humans from external and internal repressive
forces that prevent
them from acting in accordance with their free choices. In Table
1.1 Habermas’
scheme is accounted for (Willmott, 1997: 317). (For a
discussion of the merits
and weaknesses of this three-term framework, see Alvesson and
Willmott, 1996.
For applications of it to organizational culture studies, see
Knights and Willmott,
1987; Stablein and Nord, 1985.)
Academic studies and practitioner thinking on organizational
culture guided by
the technical interest often proceed from the assumption that
culture is in some way
related to organizational performance. Advocates of this view
believe that it is
Understanding Organizational Culture8
50. of organizational
culture and corporate performance and to produce knowledge
that increases the
chance of affecting specific cultural phenomena (symbols, rites,
values, norms,
etc.) or cultural systems in their totality, so that outcomes
considered beneficial
can be attained. This is an ‘offensive’ formulation of the issue,
one which sug-
gests that culture can be used as a tool or guiding concept for
achieving effec-
tiveness. A ‘defensive’ version of the culture-performance link
sees culture more
as an obstacle to economic rationality and effectiveness. It then
becomes a ques-
tion of controlling or bypassing culture so that ‘it’ does not
obstruct rational plans
or intentions based, for example, on strategic thinking or
financial criteria. In
other words, this defensive interest in culture is motivated by a
desire to avoid
difficulties in companies due to the ‘negative’ features of
culture such as resis-
tance to change and cultural conflicts, for example in the
context of mergers and
acquisitions. While the offensive view can be described as a
tool view of culture,
the defensive view can be called a trap view.
Most technically oriented writings on the subject are optimistic
and want to use
culture as a resource for effective managerial action. Through
controlling values
and subordinates’ definition of reality the wanted flexible and
committed orien-
tations and effective behaviour can be produced, it is believed. I
51. think it is impor-
tant to balance this optimism by emphasizing the difficulties
with managing
culture. Insights about these may make it easier for managers to
avoid projects or
forms of communication that are likely to fail and lead to
frustration, opposition
and/or cynicism. Rather than to tell managers what to do,
culture theory can help
them know what to not do or to be prepared for problems
following from cultural
clashes in for example international business, organizational
change initiatives,
joint ventures or mergers and acquisitions. Of course, through
illuminating diffi-
culties and pitfalls, managers get assistance on how to think in
order to use
culture in a more offensive way, so the trap and tool views may
be supportive
rather than mutually exclusive orientations.
Culture and symbolism research guided by the practical-
hermeneutic cogni-
tive interest does not concern itself with what culture might
accomplish or how
this accomplishment might be improved but concentrates on the
creation of
meaning in organizational communities. The primary task is
often identified as
exploring organizations as a subjective or, and better,
intersubjective experience.
Within this cognitive interest, ‘questions of interpretation and
description take
precedence over questions of function and causal explanations’
(Sypher et al.,
1985: 17). A common aim is to understand ‘how to achieve
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meanings, symbolism and ideas of the community being studied;
in other words
to find out what the ‘natives’ think they are up to.
The emancipatory approach investigates primarily the negative
features of
organizational life and helps to counteract the taken-for-granted
beliefs and
values that limit personal autonomy. From this perspective,
cultural studies
56. provide insight into organizational life that may contribute to
liberating thought
from its traditional patterns and the repressive aspects of
culture. One example
would be cultural meanings with a strong gender bias.
Organizational cultures
often bear strong imprints of masculine domination, leading to
ideas of what is
‘natural’ and valuable in organizations and to emphasize
instrumentality, hierar-
chy, toughness and denial of relations and dependence, and to
downplay emo-
tions, intuition and social relations (Alvesson and Billing,
1997). Such ideas may
have a doubtful value for business, for example through
allowing only a narrow
set of leadership behaviour, and through excluding most women
and some non-
macho men to be seriously and fairly considered for promotion.
These meanings
and values may lead to an impoverished working life, for
women as well as for
many men. Within an emancipatory project it is not, however,
the possible dis-
advantages for business results but for people in terms of
constrained thinking
and acting that is the primary problem. Thus, the purpose of
cultural studies is
liberating human potential or, more defensively, illuminating
the obstacles of
emancipation. The task of cultural studies, then, is to encourage
critical reflection
on beliefs, values, and understandings of social conditions.
There are two broad targets for emancipatory efforts. One is a
critique of ideo-
57. logies and sociocultural processes in organizations in which
asymmetrical power
relations and the exercise of power make their mark on people’s
consciousness.
The use of the idea of ‘corporate culture’ may here appear as a
way in which man-
agement instills favourable definitions of reality in the minds of
employees, and
domination through symbolism becomes the target (e.g. Knights
and Willmott,
1987; Rosen, 1985; Willmott, 1993). The other emancipatory
project aims at illu-
minating basic values and understandings with a view to
counteracting ethnocen-
trism and broader, taken-for-granted cultural assumptions
(Alvesson and Deetz,
2000; Carter and Jackson, 1987; Prasad, 1997). Whereas it is
sceptical of the
values typically advocated by management, its scope is broader
and includes a cul-
tural critique of ideologies and meanings that may also
constrain social elites.
The three cognitive interests indicate a wide spectrum of ways
to approach
organizational culture (as well as other phenomena). The
relationship between
the three, and in particular between the technical and the
emancipatory, is antag-
onistic. But it is also possible to see bridges between them.
Contrary to the bold
claims of much managerial writing, it is important to
acknowledge that culture is
not just something that can be actively mobilized to make
people think, feel, value
and behave in accordance with managerial wants, but that
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Understanding Organizational Culture12
out – how subordinates, customers, etc. give meaning to, and
act based on their
perception of the world. Sometimes the managerial intended
meaning resembles
those targeted (subordinates, partners, customers, the public),
sometimes the cul-
tural meanings developed by the latter differ heavily and work
as a counterforce
to managerial intent. Many mergers and acquisitions for
example fail or lead to
less than optimal results partly due to cultural differences (e.g.
Empson, 2001;
Olie, 1994) or to ongoing interactions in which differences and
dissension are
created and reinforced (Kleppestø, 1993). Managerial work then
calls for careful
62. consideration of those interacted with and communicated to. An
understanding of
cultural management not as a technocratic project where
managerial agents engineer
the minds of their subordinate objects, but as an interactive,
interpretive enter-
prise, may reduce – but not overcome – the gap between a
technical, a practical-
hermeneutic and an emancipatory approach to organizational
culture.
Objectives of this book
The overall purpose of this text is to provide a qualified and
broad introduction
to, as well as development of, organizational culture and to
strengthen it as a
powerful and inspirational framework for ‘deep thinking’ about
what goes on in
organizations and in management. Cultural interpretation is, I
think, one of the
best ways of understanding a broad spectrum of aspects of
management and
organization, but its potential has only partially been utilized,
despite much
effort, in academic work as well as in organizational practice.
We need more ‘cul-
tural imagination’ in studying and practising organization. My
objectives can
partly be illuminated through treating the why and how of
cultural interpretation.
One of this book’s main objectives is to add something to the
ways we think
about why we should conduct cultural studies of organizations –
specifically, what
63. knowledge-constitutive or cognitive interests (Habermas, 1972;
Alvesson and
Willmott, 1996) make such studies worthwhile. In principle
there are two broad
answers. The first views organizational culture as a means of
promoting more
effective managerial action, whereas the second views culture
as a point of entry
for a broader understanding of and critical reflection upon
organizational life and
work. These two answers are not necessarily mutually exclusive
(understanding
and reflection may precede effective action), but the goal of
promoting effective-
ness tends to rule out complicated research designs and ‘deep’
thinking, while pro-
motion of broad critical reflection presupposes that the project
is not subordinated
to managerial interests. Cultural interpretation as a knowledge
resource for accom-
plishing managerial objectives is radically different from
questioning them.
One may, however, recognize the legitimacy of managerial
action based on a
sophisticated understanding of culture at the same time as one is
critical of forms
of organizational culture that exercise socially unnecessary
domination. To some
extent all forms of management means domination and to some
extent all social
life presupposes constraint; the challenge is to identify and
explore more prob-
lematic and arbitrary forms of power. The interesting aspect
here is ‘surplus’
domination – in which a significant element of constraint to
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evaluated to do more harm than good, is targeted and/or where
insight of the
power element is seen to facilitate more informed and thought
through consider-
ations. The line between legitimate and illegitimate exercise of
power is thin and
open to debate – it therefore should not be avoided but
addressed.
This book takes seriously the capacity of culture to
simultaneously create order,
meaning, cohesion and orientation, thus making collective
action, indeed organi-
zational life, possible and to restrict autonomy, creativity and
questioning,
thereby preventing novel, potentially more ethically thought
through ways of
organizing social life from being considered. Understanding and
assessing
culture calls for taking seriously what it makes possible as well
as what it makes
impossible. Arguably, a broadened cultural understanding which
encourages
problem-solving and problem-awareness – neglecting neither
instrumental nor
political-ethical concerns – may contribute to the social good.
The trick is then to
navigate between managerial technocratic consciousness and
critical good-doing
elitism, stimulating academic work and practical organizational
68. acts guided by an
ongoing struggle to being open for the multidimensionality of
culture.
The other major objective of this book is to stimulate reflection
on how a cul-
tural understanding of organization can best be accomplished.
This calls for an
ability to vary perspectives: to consider several aspects and
relate these to each
other. Reflexivity and insight, not procedure and truth, then
become catchwords
(Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2000). This ‘how’ question is, of
course, contingent
upon the ‘why’ question. The overall purpose of doing
organizational culture
analysis is, naturally, guiding answers to questions on how such
analysis is best
conducted. How can we think productively about culture in
academic research
and education as well as in organizational practice? What does
it mean to see an
organization as a culture? How can we use culture in order to
get a good combi-
nation of guidance/focus and openness, appreciating wholeness
and depth, ana-
lytical and theoretical insight and experienced organizational
life? These are
challenges that the present text takes seriously.
The following topics seem vital to: (1) the role and meaning of
metaphors for
both organizations and culture, i.e. the basic meanings (gestalt,
image) we have
in mind when addressing organizational culture; (2) the
significance of culture for
69. corporate performance; (3) broadening the area of application
for cultural think-
ing and developing it as a key dimension of management,
marketing, strategy, the
business concept; (4) exploring culture in relationship to
leadership and under-
standing leadership in an organizational culture context; (5) the
emancipatory
potential of cultural studies as a counterweight to ethnocentrism
and parochial-
ism as well as specific forms of managerial domination and
thereby as a facili-
tator of reflection on self-limiting forms of understanding; (6)
the question of
level of analysis – whether the organization is a culture, a set of
subcultures, or a
local reflection of societal macro-culture (a societal
subculture); and (7) culture
as a source of order and integration versus culture being
characterized by differen-
tiation, contradiction and ambiguity. Careful consideration of
each of these themes
will highlight the weaknesses and strengths of various
approaches and suggest
improvements that may help organizational culture thinking to
produce insights
about organizations and working life – in research and
organizational practice.
The Concept of Organizational Culture 13
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73. per chapter (apart
from the two last topics which are treated in Chapter 7), in the
same order as pre-
sented here, i.e. topic 1 is addressed in Chapter 2, topic 2 in
Chapter 3 and so on.
I try to reach a broader readership and I have written the book
so that it is possi-
ble to skip or skim some parts of it without too much difficulty.
Practitioners may
find Chapter 2 and pages 160–166 and 186–195 less significant
or easy to digest.
Some undergraduate students may feel the same, although those
familiar with
Morgan’s Images of Organization (1986) will probably also be
comfortable with
these parts of the book.
Summary
Organizational culture is one of the key areas of management
and organization
studies as well as practice. An important task of managers is to
try to manage
the ideas and understandings of their subordinates. Also dealing
with technical
issues – budgets, information systems – call for people
ascribing a positive and
similar meaning for these to work well. All management takes
place within
culture, this includes organizational culture but also societal-
level, industrial and
suborganization-level culture. The expansion of the interest in
culture during the
1980s reflects an increased interest in organizational life and
managerial action
74. and responds also to the development of new forms of
organizations in which for-
mal hierarchy and bureaucracy are less effective means of
control and in which
ideas, beliefs and values are central. This does not mean that
one necessarily
should adopt sweeping statements about ‘new organizations’ as
a major rationale
for an interest in organizational culture. Although ‘rationalistic’
modes of man-
agement control or machine-like organizations clearly still are
significant, these
also need to be understood in a cultural context and scrutinized
in terms of the
cultural orientations that they rely upon as well as trigger. In
addition, we live in
an increasingly international and multicultural society, making
cultural issues
highly salient.
This book is an effort to clarify alternative approaches to
organizational
culture, to contribute to an increased awareness of the
phenomena that cultural
studies of organizations address, to facilitate ‘better’ choices in
the development
of cultural perspectives, and to encourage attention to different
aspects of tradi-
tional objects of study. In short, to contribute to a more
sensitive and interpreta-
tively sharper use of the idea of culture in organization and
management studies
and practice.
Culture refers to complex, inaccessible, fuzzy, holistic
phenomena. Much talk
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interpretation and deciphering. Productive here is a balancing
between rigour and
flexibility, reductionism and consideration of a wide set of
aspects, analytical
sharpness and space for intuition, imagination and intelligent
guesswork. Cultural
interpretation cannot be pressed into a formula or a model. This
kind of work
calls for careful reflection and self-critique of one’s own
cultural bias and what
different concepts of culture can reveal but also obscure.
Notes
1 Perhaps the most important aspect of this variation is the
79. philosophical and meta-
theoretical assumptions that guide approaches to organizational
culture studies. The
most important distinction is between an objectivist-
functionalist view of social reality
and an interpretive approach (Burrell and Morgan, l979;
Smircich, 1983a). There are
widely differing views on whether ‘culture’ refers to real,
objective phenomena ‘out
there’ or if it is a framework for thinking about certain aspects
of the social world.
These result in very different understandings of culture that are
only to a limited extent
reflected in differences in its formal definition.
2 Sperber (cited by Gusfield and Michalowicz, 1984: 421)
interprets as symbolic ‘all
activity where the means put into play seem to be clearly
disproportionate to the
explicit or implicit end … that is, all activity whose rationale
escapes me’. As Gusfield
and Michalowicz note, what is symbolic for one person may be
non-symbolic for
another. Still, I think it is wise to use ‘symbol’ as a conceptual
tool for making sense
of the hidden or latent meanings of an object.
3 In management and organization studies, the terms corporate
culture and organiza-
tional culture are used, sometimes interchangeably, sometimes
with different mean-
ings. Typically corporate culture refers more to the ideals,
values and meanings
proposed and/or embraced by senior managers and possibly
other groups responsive to
their messages. Sometimes authors even view corporate culture
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Module 4 - SLP
STRATEGY IMPLEMENTATION AND MONITORING
The Module 4 SLP requires that you run a simulation entitled:
“The Platform Wars: Simulating the Battle for Video Game
Supremacy.” Visit the Forio site, and access the simulation
here:
https://forio.com/simulate/mit/video-game/simulation/
Click on “Play as an individual.”
Enter your first name(Donald) as the “Screen ID,” then click
“Login.”
In this web-based simulation, you are a senior manager of a
video game hardware platform producer. Each year, you have
three decisions to make:
1. Determine the price of the video game console;
2. Determine the number of video games that your company will
subsidize to enhance the development of new video games (and
that can be played on your company’s video game console); be
84. sure to note that the subsidy of each new game costs you
$16.2M each year; and
3. Determine the royalty percentage you will require game
makers to pay you (the higher the royalties, the more revenue
you earn on new games, but the less inclined game makers are
to develop new games).
At the start of the simulation, your market share is 50%. The
price of your video game console is $250.00 (note that your
competitor’s market share is 50%, but your competitor’s
console price is $370.00 (hint: you are vastly underpriced to
begin the simulation).
As the CEO, it is your task to make decisions one year at a
time. As you do so, note how key data are changing, and take
note of how your pricing, changes made to royalties, and new
game subsidies change your profits and your market share. You
may need to go through at least one practice run of the
simulation in order to become familiar with it.
One way of becoming familiar with the simulation is to change
only value, leaving the others constant. This will isolate the
impact of one variable, and will give you a sense of how the
change in a single variable impacts revenue, market share, etc.
(use the Dashboard and the financial statements to determine
this). For example, if I leave all variables unchanged in Year 1
(price = $240; Game titles to subsidize = 3, and Royalties =
15%), my market share becomes 69% at the end of Year 1 (and
my net profit is $48.0M). In contrast, if I reduce the console
price to $230, my market share becomes 71% at the end of Year
1 (and my net profit is $33.6M). Importantly, if I increase my
console price to $330, my market share at the end of Year 1 is
58%; however, my net profit is $140.8M!
As the CEO, your task is to find the best combination of
changes in the three variables that both increases your market
share and earns a maximum net profit. Remember that the
changes are relative; there are no right or wrong answers. Your
goal is to use the knowledge you have acquired from previous
courses (Accounting, Marketing, Finance, etc.), and allow the
85. various statements and the Dashboard to guide you in your
analysis, accumulating high market share and revenue. Be sure
to take note of how the statements may be used to “control”
your strategy! Remember that you need to cover your costs,
while simultaneously turning a profit and increasing your
market share.
SLP Assignment Expectations
As the CEO, you are asked to run the simulation a minimum of
three (3) times, noting the changes made each year, as well as
your final results. Then, write a 2- to 3-page memorandum to
your Board of Directors, informing them of how changes in the
variable (e.g., the price of the console; royalties paid by the
game maker; and changes in the number of game titles
subsidized) affect total market share, revenue per year, and net
profit per year. Be creative, and include some tables and graphs
in your written analysis to show your changes and/or results.
Discussion: M4
Some organizational theorists would assert that an
organization's culture cannot be "managed" in the truest sense
of how one "manages" the processes and activities and things
that exist within an organization. David Campbell (2000, p. 28)
says that an organization "is being constructed continuously on
a daily, even momentary [italics added], basis through
individual interactions with others. The organization never
settles into an entity or a thing that can be labelled and
described, because it is constantly changing, or reinventing
itself, through the interactions going on within it." At the same
time, Campbell says that an organization "does have a certain
character to it, such that, like driving on the motorway, not just
anything goes" (p. x).
Consider the sheer multiplicity of formal and informal groups,
structures, tasks, functional operations, and individual
86. interactions that exist and occur within very large
organizations; these are seemingly endless. Consider as well the
potential number (and combination) of individual to individual,
individual to group, and group to group interactions that are
likely to occur on a momentary basis within an organization
(and then, there are the seemingly endless numbers of
contacts/interactions with external stakeholders as well). The
possibilities are seemingly infinite—or at least they are
indefinite. For this reason, organizational culture seems more
abstract, fragmentary, perhaps fluid—perhaps even relative and
momentary.
What is organizational culture? Can culture be managed in the
same way that other systems and processes can be “managed”?
Depending on your answer, what does this mean as to the use of
culture as a “strategic control”?
